Knight of Gehenna (Hellsong Book 2)

by Shaun O. McCoy

  “Stay back,” El Cid warned as she advanced toward the thing.

  El Cid seemed so small before the tremendous male harpy. It spread its wings out wide, making it seem even larger.

  “I’m with you,” Rick warned the Infidel Friend.

  El Cid nodded and began angling towards the left side of the room. Rick moved to the right.

  El Cid raised her M-16 and began firing quick three shot bursts. The male harpy screamed, its voice deeper and more birdlike than the others. It folded its top wings over and in front of itself, using them as a shield. The bullet impacts caused small eruptions of feathers and blood. The harpy started advancing towards El Cid.

  Rick opened fire from behind, his shotgun booming. Ellen could tell from the pattern of blood spurting out of the thing’s back that Rick was firing slugs. The harpy wheeled around, folding its middle wings behind its back and keeping its top wings forward. It rushed towards Rick, but El Cid was faster.

  She tossed her assault rifle aside and sprinted at the beast. She leapt up, wrapping her legs around its long torso between its bottom and middle sets of wings.

  Molly shouted suddenly.

  Ellen turned to see a female harpy emerge from the passageway behind her. She tried to spin away from it, but her ankle gave out and she dropped to the ground.

  The harpy advanced, its grey, wrinkled breasts wobbling as it approached. Molly, still shouting, let loose a round of buckshot. The shotgun blast caused the harpy to drop back a step, then it pushed its wings and arms forward, and with a powerful backward thrust, launched itself towards Molly.

  Molly fired another shot, hitting it full in the face. She ducked and spun away, staying clear of the thing’s reaching arms, but still getting knocked to the ground by an outstretched wing. The harpy reached out to claw at Ellen. Its nails were long, dark and yellow. They grew out from the entire top half of its fingers, sloping down into a single point.

  Massan rushed forward, hitting it in the face with his pack. Molly fired up at it from where she lay on the ground, knocking it off balance. Another attack from Massan sent it sprawling to the floor.

  Ellen struggled up to her feet, looking back towards Rick and El Cid. Rick was dancing away from the swaying beast, trying to stay out of range. His shotgun had been knocked across the room, and he was using his rifle as a club. El Cid was still on its back, her legs wrapped around its torso. She was grabbing on to the middle wing on its right side. With her right hand, she gripped some of its feathers. She thrust her left hand through the wing, pushing her arm in until it was shoulder deep. Then she retracted her elbow, forcing the wing back into her armpit and freeing her other hand. The male harpy turned for a second, trying to claw at her. El Cid fended off the attack with her now free right hand. Rick took the opportunity to hit the thing in the face with the butt of his rifle. When the male harpy turned back to him, Rick retreated towards his shotgun.

  As the male harpy moved forward, El Cid let go of the creature’s torso with her left leg, and swung it over so that her legs enveloped the middle wing at its base. She now had her entire body wrapping up that wing, almost in a fetal position. She straightened her body. The wing straightened with her. She began to arch the wing backward. The male harpy leaned its head back, screaming in pain at the ceiling. Ellen could see El Cid shaking with the effort. With a tremendous pop, the wing snapped at its middle joint.

  Another blast from Molly brought Ellen’s attention away from El Cid. The female harpy had risen. Massan was sprawled across the floor. The creature took Molly’s shotgun blast to its chest without care. Blood spurted out of its torso from the buckshot as it reached down with its claws towards Massan. Alice’s pistol rang out. The bullet hit the harpy directly in the eye. It also screamed with pain, covering its face with a wing. Massan stood quickly and continued to beat at it. Molly let another blast go.

  El Cid was still climbing on the harpy. The thing was ignoring Rick’s blows now, and was reaching back to try and hurt the Infidel Friend. She released the broken wing and wrapped up the shoulder of the reaching harpy with her left arm. She let go with her legs, her weight pulling the harpy downward, doubling it over at the waist. For a brief moment, her feet touched the ground, then El Cid leapt up, her left arm still trapping the harpy’s shoulder. With her right, she encircled the harpy’s neck as well. It stood up tall, bringing El Cid up with it. Rick dove at its legs, driving them together. The male Harpy toppled over backwards.

  El Cid landed, mounted on top of the thing, her left leg intertwined with its broken wing. She beat at the male harpy’s face with her fists, hitting it with quick snapping punches, bouncing the harpy’s head into the stone.

  It let out its loudest call yet, a shout of deep fury which shook Ellen’s insides. Then it opened its mouth wider still and let loose a sudden exhalation of air. The putrid stench was so vile that Ellen almost vomited from across the room. She could see flecks of green phlegm spewing up into El Cid’s face as the male harpy breathed. Ellen could barely keep her eyes open. El Cid was visibly affected. She covered her eyes with one of her forearms. Then El Cid let loose her own scream, a high pitched vitriolic call.

  For a brief second, the male Harpy seemed surprised by the Infidel Friend’s ability to resist its rotten breath. Then it took El Cid’s vomit full in the face. El Cid wretched again, covering the thing’s eyes completely with her bile. The harpy gurgled, choking on the fluid, and covered its eyes with its hands. With a renewed fury, El Cid pounded at the thing with a rain of alternating elbows. Blood began to spew up from the harpy’s face as her relentless assault continued.

  The battle with the female harpy was heading her way. Ellen moved quickly to the side, trying to stay clear of the thing’s batting wings. Once again it had managed to force Massan to the floor. Alice emptied her pistol’s clip into the things knee. The female harpy attempted to advance, but wobbled awkwardly. Its wounded knee failed to support its weight and it dropped to the ground. Molly fired another shell while Alice changed clips.

  Rick had mounted the harpy now too, his own eyes half-closed against the noxious vapors. His knee was placed firmly on the thing’s testicles, and his right leg was straightened and out to one side. He had his knife in one hand, and was driving it down into the thing’s abdomen. Whatever flesh the male harpy possessed was tougher than a human’s because it took Rick several strikes before he got the knife in hilt deep. Then he began to saw the male harpy’s belly open.

  “Ellen,” Rick shouted, “get my shotgun, load it with buckshot.”

  The female harpy was moving as best it could on one leg and one arm. Its wings and free arm still struggled to fend off Massan’s attacks. At some point he had discarded his pack in favor of using his rifle as a club. Massan stepped in closer to the thing, rifle raised high. The harpy responded, using its wings to propel itself at him in a desperate lunge. It got its weight beneath Massan and flapped its wings again, throwing him across the room. Massan impacted headfirst into a stone wall. He collapsed to the ground, blood pouring across one shoulder from a wound on the back of his head. Trying to stand, Massan pushed himself up the wall. His balance failed him, and he crumpled sideways to the ground. He tried again, but his legs would not hold him up.

  Ellen moved around the battle and rushed as fast as her wounded ankle would allow towards Rick’s shotgun. She picked it up and looked behind her.

  The male harpy was bucking wildly. Rick and El Cid were keeping it down, but the motion was causing El Cid to have trouble getting at it with her elbows. Ellen rushed over to Rick’s pack and opened his ammo pouch. With shaking hands, she loaded the shotgun full of twelve gauge shells.

  Molly had stepped forward, brandishing her shotgun over her head to take Rick’s place. The harpy’s claw ripped open her abdomen. Blood spilled out. Molly shoved her shotgun into its chest and fired. It fell back and Alice released a clip into the female harpy’s remaining leg. It fell on its stomach. Molly, paying no heed to her wound, emptied round after
round of buckshot into the thing. One of the ricocheting balls of buckshot hit Ellen in the arm. She saw the blood welling out of the wound, soaking into her white cotton shirt.

  “Now!” Rick shouted at her, holding up one hand.

  She was about to toss him the weapon, but the male harpy bucked and Rick had to grab both of its legs to keep it from escaping.

  Ellen rushed over, dancing by one of its flapping wings, and shoved the shotgun into wound Rick had made.

  “Clear!” Rick shouted.

  El Cid stopped mid elbow strike and wrapped up the male harpy’s right arm and neck. Then she pulled her body off to one side, like a wrestler pinning her oversized opponent.

  Ellen held down the trigger and cocked the shotgun again and again, filling the male harpy’s body with buckshot. It tried to scream once more, but this time only blood fountained up from its mouth. Finally, the shotgun was out of shells. Ellen fell back. The male harpy had stopped moving.

  The female harpy also appeared dead. Everyone looked to El Cid as she stood.

  She was covered in feathers. Her own vomit had drenched her hair and was dripping down her ripped clothing. Her ponytail had been completely undone, and some of her hair had been ripped out in the struggle. An errant blow had bloodied her lip and was causing some swelling on the left side of her face. Tears and snot, not from sorrow or pain, but from the vapors of the harpy’s breath, poured down her face. Her fists and elbows were covered with harpy blood. Her chest rose and fell with her quickened breath.

  Ellen had never seen anyone more powerful than this girl, at least, not since she’d seen Cris.

  “I,” El Cid said, “need a fucking bath.”

  Martin, Hidalgo, Huxley, and Ben crept into the room. There the dead copse of Hungerleaf trees was, just like Martin had hoped it would be. More gunshots were being fired, and it sounded like they were coming from his men in the riverbed.

  “Good navigating, sir!” Huxley whispered. “We’re right behind ‘em!”

  “You be careful,” Hidalgo said.

  With their hoodies off, Martin hoped they would look enough like their enemies to pass as one of them. He walked amongst the trees, his pistol drawn. He saw the back of one of the corpsemen. This man had no shirt on at all. His skin was mottled with dead patches. They almost seemed like stripes along the man’s back. The most revolting parts of the skin appeared where dead flesh met live flesh. There pus filled sores and infected skin bubbled up into oozing masses. The smell was pretty bad. Martin shot him in the back of the head.

  He looked around to see if any of the other corpsemen had noticed. They had not. They didn’t even look. If anything, Martin’s shot encouraged a few more to fire towards the river.

  Thank God these people are stoned out of their minds.

  Martin waved Hidalgo, Huxley and Ben in.

  Martin moved amongst the trees, finding another victim. This one had chunks of his leg missing. His khaki pants were ripped where his skin had been torn away. Like the previous man, he was shirtless, and his body’s flesh was also engaged in the same struggle between life and undeath. Martin shot him too.

  He heard a shout, and when he looked back, he saw Ben being accosted by the striped corpseman he’d shot earlier.

  What? I killed him. I know I did. I shot him in the back of the . . .

  Ben fell to the ground, his throat pumping out blood from where the corpse eater had bit him. Hidalgo’s silver colored arrows whistled through the air, one after another, burying themselves into both Ben and the corpseman. Hidalgo approached, silent as death, moving up to the bodies he’d just shot. Ben started to rise as a corpse, his body twitching. Before this new undead thing could stand, Hidalgo put his foot on it. He grabbed one of his arrows in the dead man’s chest, and ripped it, along with some blood and a few chunks of an organ, out. Ben’s body stopped twitching. Hidalgo nocked the bloody arrow, looking about for another target.

  The hell do you make your arrows out of?

  “Stay behind me,” Martin ordered. “Kill everyone I kill. Pretty much everybody here is going to have to die twice.”

  They moved through the trees together, with Martin killing the corpse eaters, and Hidalgo and Huxley killing the corpses that rose. Martin had brought five clips, but he had the feeling he was going to run out of bullets.

  The corpsemen began wailing. They could tell that something was wrong, but they didn’t seem to know exactly what.

  One of them, who looked mostly alive except for a few sores on his face, shouted out. “Who’s in charge?”

  “I am,” Martin answered, then gunned the man down.

  The amount of gunfire coming from the corpse eaters had decreased dramatically.

  Have we killed that many of them?

  He saw a corpseman to his left. The man had tossed his gun aside.

  No. More of them are running out of bullets.

  “Put your hoodie back on,” Martin ordered Huxley as he moved towards the right side of the copse of trees.

  “What?”

  “You heard me, Hux.” Then Martin, having hid behind a stump, shouted out as loud as he could. “Alright, Constance, they’re almost out of bullets. Charge!”

  Shouting in unison, the Harpsborough Hunters, along with a dozen or so blue shirted compatriots, emerged from the riverbed. The corpsemen, many out of bullets, dropped their rifles and ran, moving out from their cover. Shotgun and rifle blasts began to tear them down.

  “Don’t forget!” Martin cried over the havoc, “kill every enemy twice!”

  Galen closed the hatch after Dakota exited. Arturus could hear Aaron turning the wheel that sealed it from within the corridor below.

  We won’t be able to get back in unless he lets us.

  This area was covered in a darkness every bit as deep as what they’d experienced in the service corridor, but unlike the aqueduct, the darkness was pierced by intermittent flashes of intense blue light. They were coming from a passage to Arturus’ left. Mist clung to the ground of that tunnel, almost waste high.

  “It’s like lightning,” Dakota whispered.

  For a moment the corridor lit up, and in that moment, Arturus could see Dakota’s awed face.

  “That’s the Erebus, isn’t it?” Dakota asked.

  There was another series of blue bursts.

  “Isn’t it?” Dakota asked again.

  “Yes.” Galen’s answer was strangely reluctant. “Follow me.”

  “No.” Dakota answered.

  Arturus stopped, surprised by his reply.

  The sudden flashes of light were disorienting.

  Galen was facing Dakota as if the man were an enemy. “There is no reason to do this, Dakota.”

  No reason to do what?

  “You and I both got the same orders from Calimay,” Dakota insisted. “If you try and go back now, she won’t let you go home. And you know you need a guide to get down the Lethe offshoot.”

  In another flash of light, Arturus saw that Galen’s hand was on his pistol. “You don’t have to make it back, Dakota.”

  “If I don’t make it back, you don’t get a guide. You think she’ll help you if you come back with all your people alive, but with both me and Tamara dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bullshit. Send Turi, Galen.”

  “No,” Galen’s voice was no longer calm or collected. “I will not send my son to where the Furies can catch him. I know they’ll see him. They’re so sensitive they’ll even kill devil controlled corpses. My son is at least half human.”

  “That might not matter. Send him across the Erebus. If the Furies come, he can run. Can’t you see! Galen, that’s why the Infidel wants him. That’s why Maab wants him. He can bring back the weapon from Sheol.”

  There was a sudden terrible crack. It sounded like bone running against stone. In the next moment of light, Arturus saw Dakota on the ground. Blood was coming from his head.

  “Come with me, Turi,” Galen ordered. “You don’t have to go.”
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  My destiny.

  “Come!”

  The light came and went again. Arturus saw his father standing over the unmoving Dakota.

  “Turi!”

  “I’m sorry, father,” Arturus said, “but you’re going to have to stay there.”

  Galen started to move forward, but stopped. “Come here, son! Don’t go. You’re too close already. No force can resist a Fury. Not me, not a Minotaur. Not even a Nephilim. I won’t be able to protect you. Stay away from the Erebus. There’s no way to know how close they’ll be.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I can’t protect you from a Fury.” Galen’s voice was desperate. “I spent fourteen years raising you. I will not lose you now.”

  “You brought me to the Carrion, father. If you hadn’t been comfortable with me dying, you shouldn’t have done that.”

  Another flash of blue.

  Arturus headed towards the light.

  Martin and his troops stalked through the halls beyond the dead hungerleaf trees. Caval and Hidalgo led them forward, unerringly, through the low circular tunnels. They reminded Martin of drain pipes, only they were slightly larger.

  “This is it,” Caval reported, pointing to an arched entryway.

  Martin held up a hand to stop his hunters and moved forward. Huxley and Hidalgo crept after him. The three of them paused under the arch.

  The room beyond the entryway was perfectly circular and about fifty feet tall. The floor was made of grey cobblestones, smooth in the way that river rocks had been in the old world. Towards the center of that cobbled area, which was perhaps one hundred yards in diameter, was a small temple.

  It was not a temple in the traditional sense, seeming almost Greek in construction. Like the room, it too was perfectly circular. It had an outer wall of sorts, made up of a series of pillars, and an inner wall made out of fitted marble bricks. There was a single entrance which Martin could not see through.

  A few of the corpsemen were in the chamber. Some almost certainly had the stilling. Martin knew how they looked from Benson. They seemed to be far too thin to be alive. There was another pair still moving. One was lying down, fiddling with the cobblestones, stacking them on top of each other in the same way that a child might have, oddly oblivious to the second corpseman who was diligently eating his leg.